take a look at what I've been creating

When making this card I began with a colour scheme more than image. I wanted a beige background with some red highlights. As I worked with the beige and red I decided it needed a stronger brown as well. When almost finished the panel I thought could use it for Karen’s OLW challenge today “Splats & Splatters” but then realised, as has happened to me before, that it is not a one layer card!

Anyway, on to the method: I began by stamping the letter background and the poppy stamp in Memento desert sand. Next I sponged some desert sand and re-inked the poppy stamp with desert sand and love letter inks. I sponged some red onto the petals, added some blended ink with an aqua painter and some highlights with a marker. I used both love letter and potter’s clay inks for more sponging and the potter’s clay marker to lengthen and define the stems a little more. The splatters were done in both the love letter and the potter’s clay ink.

All my children have finished school now so there are new activities happening and plans being made. I have been sorting and reorganizing my craft space and also tackling the schoolroom/playroom/storeroom which I plan to change into the guestroom for our summer guests.

Considering how much I like poppy images it is surprising that it took me a while to play with this stamp. I used one of my favourite watercolour techniques to create this little scene and paired it with one of my favourite sentiment stamps.

For this look, I paint water onto my watercolour paper first. I ink the stamp with markers and stamp it onto the wet paper. The ink bleeds immediately and some times the images are barely recognisable. After the paper has dried a little I stamp the image again and start blending the ink with a brush or aqua painter. At this point I add extra colour to petals and stems if necessary with markers or watercolour pencils. Before the paper has dried I add the blue sky with a paint brush and maybe a little sponging.

I didn’t have the exact colour of pink cardstock to mat the image panel so I just sponged the edge in the same Memento Rosebud ink that I had used for the petals.

Thanks for visiting and leaving me such l0vely comments. I loved all the border ideas submitted for my last One Layer Wednesday Challenge but have not managed to finish commenting yet. I’ll get there; thanks for your patience.